Hard Parley
by greenjudy
Summary: The Turks go drinking; Elena goes out on a limb.


"You were," she says, a little breathless, "the kid in school who corrected everyone. Weren't you?"

Rude studies his glass. Reno swallows his beer, swiveling to stare at her.

They are sitting four to the little round table in the high-ceilinged, wedge-shaped bar. They've just destroyed an aspirational gang of materia smugglers called Neap Tide. There are six pitchers, four of them empty, on top of the table, and just enough room underneath that no knees have to touch.

Tseng is taking this easy. He lets his head tilt a fraction to one side.

Reno sees the latitude. He could almost draw you a diagram. He sees exactly where the edges are, he feels it open, and he sees clearly when and how it will close.

"Kid with all the answers," she continues. Her face is red, maybe from embarrassment. "I can see it, it's all over you, it's in your body language. You were that kid who just had a knee-jerk need to correct people he thought were wrong."

Rude lifts an empty pitcher.

"Elena," he says, "how about it." She looks at him, raises an eyebrow, takes the pitcher and staggers toward the bar.

"Interesting," Tseng says, watching her go.

Elena comes back with two pitchers, not one. She puts one down in front of herself.

"The jocks kick your ass a lot?" she asks Tseng.

Rude breathes, loudly.

"No," Tseng replies. It's starting to close, Reno thinks.

"So how come you never got beat up? Kids like that get creamed. You don't read that way at all. How could that be?"

"Kid," Rude says.

Elena picks up the pitcher and drinks from it. Wipes her chin with her hand. Sniffs. "You kept it up when you got in, didn't you? As a trainee. You couldn't figure out how to shut up."

"Speaking of that," Reno says.

"You're so much subtler now," Elena says, enunciating perfectly. Her eyes are puffy, reddened. "Someone taught you how to keep your mouth shut. Wonder who. Your peers didn't do it. Was it Veld?"

Tseng picks up the pitcher and tops up his glass. It's a sliver now, Reno thinks. It's closing.

"What did he do? Oh, he beat you, all right. He beat it out of you," Elena says.

"That'll do, Elena," Rude says.

"With his hands? With his belt? He a birch rod kind of man back in those days, sir?"

"Fuck's sake," Reno says.

Elena's eyes are wide. She's shaking.

"Oh. He used a shoe, didn't he."

"Reno," Tseng says.

Reno gets to his feet, swings around the table.

"Let's take a powder, kid." As he reaches for her shoulder, friendly-like, she suddenly has his thumb and is bending it flush to his wrist. Reno jerks his hand free, moves back just a click, shaking his wrist.

Despite the fact that he's had more to drink than she has, Reno is still sober. He gets and holds her eyes. He doesn't say anything, but the future is bifurcating; he shows her carefully and clearly, shows it to her in his eyes, in his face.

There are two possible Renos, and they're both right here. If she chooses this Reno, she can go quietly, and get swirlied in the ladies' room and puke all over him, whatever was said to the boss just water down the drain, and all will be well.

The other Reno can show her what's under the sawdust on the floor of the Hard Parley.

He wants her to see the two options clearly. Does she see?

She nods, he nods, grins, she gets up, he stands back, she picks up her chair and she breaks it over his head.

"Whoa," Rude says.

Before Elena can move, Reno rises, sawdust on his coat, and doesn't bother to activate or even extend his mag-rod, just cracks the butt of it into the back of her skull.

It's over before anyone really even looks up from the game on the plasma screen that's hanging over the bar, and Tseng turns to the waiter with a couple of gil for the chair. Reno, shaking his head, brushes sawdust from his sleeves. Then he kneels and rolls her onto her side, and Rude helps push her a little further under the table, away from traffic.

The three Turks still conscious resume their seats. Rude refills their glasses.

"So," Reno says, "a shoe, huh?"


End file.
